Ken,
With all this uproar about servicing customers for NON-security related battery service calls, I had a few comments about taking these calls and making them into an opportunity.
In my past experience, when receiving these types of calls, I would ask the customer a series of questions over the phone all the while accessing their (usually monitored) account on line to see if any related trouble signals or low battery signals were received. If not I'd have the customer tell me what messages (or lights) were showing on the keypad. When there is no specific messages or trouble lights or signals sent, obviously this narrows down the situation and I'll explain this gently to the customer that their confusion (about which smoke is beeping) is commonplace. I'll then ask the customer to locate the different smokes in the home and notice the difference in appearance, location etc. I would explain that smokes 'required by code' were wired in separately, yet ALSO have a built in back-up battery, etc. After educating the customer, they usually apologize for taking my time and helping them understand and learn something new. However, the problem remained. I would then ask the customer if they still need assistance changing that particular battery, because many smokes are located high up on vaulted ceilings.
Regardless if they still wanted to pay for a service call to change a $10 battery, I found this was an excellent time to talk to them about other things concerning their alarm. For instance, did they need any add-ons at this time, because if they did, we could change that $10 battery as a courtesy. (?)
This is also a good time to update their call list. I found that Customers appreciate my asking because they often do want to up date a phone number, but keep forgetting to call it in. I might even bring up the last time there was a false alarm (if there was one) that I noticed on the central station records and ask if they want to talk about it. As long as the phone call was going well, I would close out by asking if there was anything else on their mind and then I would ask for referrals. I believe that if you give good customer service, you'll keep good customers and receive good referral's.
One more thing..... why don't individual alarm companies just type up some kind of service rider that is attached to the original service contract that specifically addresses the 'foreign battery'' issue. The 1st time a customer calls for this type of battery replacement, probably means that they'll be needing another battery replaced again in the future. This is the perfect time to bring up the subject of a new 'foreign battery' replacement plan. Certainly alarm company's can profit from it.
Cynthia Hart
Hart Universal Security
Springfield Oregon